Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Brassicales > Brassicaceae > Isatis > Isatis tinctoria

Isatis tinctoria (dyer's woad)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Isatis tinctoria, with woad (/ˈwoʊd/) or glastum as the common name, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae. It is commonly called dyer's woad. It is occasionally known as Asp of Jerusalem. Woad is also the name of a blue dye produced from the leaves of the plant. Used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries, woad is now being studied for use in the treatment of cancer. There has also been some revival of the use of woad for craft purposes.
View Wikipedia Record: Isatis tinctoria

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Lifespan [1]  Biennial/Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [1]  Woad is historically famous as a dye plant, having been used as a body paint by the ancient Britons prior to the invasion of the Romans; A blue dye is obtained from the leaves by a complex process that involves fermenting the leaves and produces a foul stench; The dye is rarely used nowadays, having been replaced first by the tropical Indigofera tinctoria and more recently by synthetic substitutes; Nevertheless, it is a very good quality dye that still finds some use amongst artists etc who want to work with natural dyes. A very good quality green is obtained by mixing it with Dyer's greenwood (Genista tinctoria); Woad is also used to improve the colour and quality of indigo, as well as to form a base for black dyes; The leaves are harvested when fully grown and 3 - 4 harvests can be made in total; Recent research in Germany has shown that (the dyestuff in?) this plant is a very good preservative for wood;
Height [1]  39 inches (1 m)
Width [1]  18 inches (0.45 m)
Light Preference [2]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [2]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [2]  Mostly Infertile
Soil Moisture [2]  Mostly Dry
View Plants For A Future Record : Isatis tinctoria

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Erysiphe cruciferarum[4]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2Ellenberg, H., Weber, H.E., Dull, R., Wirth, V., Werner, W., Paulissen, D. (1991) Zeigerwerte von Pflanzen in Mitteleuropa. Scripta Geobotanica 18, 1–248
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 5Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0